Sudan : The Standardized Beauty

Image: Duke Media.

As everywhere around the globe these days , there is a standardizing  for beauty , we have an image that everyone wants to look like, and it's the same  in Sudan.

Talking with many females during my stay there and being a  part of a wedding preparation made me understand a little bit about the beauty standards in a city like Khartoum, a  pretty girl is a light skin girl , which means in a city in the middle of the African continent with hot climate  adding to this  of course the African genes that has much melanin in it ,  girls has to do much work to keep their skin light ! so starting by using natural masks , covering the face and the hands , arriving to using chemical products based on cortisone that  has as  secondary effect the "de-pigmentation" which means taking the normal color from the skin !

but it's not just the skin , it  goes to the eyebrows , the hair, the  nails , even the color of the skin on the articulations like knee and elbow which are anatomically speaking  darker in all races !

you walk in the street , you see girls  looks like each other , the identity is gone because we are trying to reach a " perfect"  image made by  society  or media , you open the Sudanese TV, all  female presenters are looking alike , all from the same "type " of beauty !

I see that black skin has a unique charm , makes the eyes more expressive , more pure and more resistant to skin diseases as well !


Dark skin beauty was also  not accepted in several  countries around the world especially in American , in Europe as well and now it's moving to Arabic countries with mixed Arabic African genes  though  we don't have their problems , environment  or  culture !
i recommend watching the  documentary " Dark Girls " : http://officialdarkgirlsmovie.com/

maybe we want to start  fighting this before it gets serious  and be as we were created , different and beautiful !